Monday, March 2, 2009

Sea of Cortez - Production Adventure 4

Good friend Captain Greg Grivetto of Horizon Charters is on another eco adventure and this time in the company of the BBC as they film their much acclaimed series, “Last Chance to See”. Biologist, naturalist, writer - Mark Carwardine and esteemed actor Stephen Fry host this series and will be aboard as we search for blue, sperm and humpback whales.

For the next two weeks he'll be sending us his "notes from the field":

I need to talk to the people that named this place Sea of Cortez. There seems to be a bit of confusion as to who's Sea it really is. The namer believes that it is Cortez's sea, we believe that is the Sea of Whales. I will discuss this with the powers that be in Mexico and will get back to you.

So what did we see today after I wrote you all's this morning? Well, read my list below:

1) 2 humpback whales 30 miles north of Cabo San Lucas2) 100 sportfishing boats, yachts and pangas on the Golden Gate Bank 20 miles north of Cabo. Of which at least 1/2 of them were engaged with marlin, tuna or what appeared to be wahoo. There were marlin jumping everywhere! Would be a cool place to be before the boats arrived, say 7:00am. Find a bait ball and jump in to swim with the marlin!3) Cabo San Lucas....what a zoo...4) THE SEA OF WHALES!!!! It was like an infomercial for the humpback species. Jumping over here, frolicking over there. We stopped with one pod and watched them swim the length of the boat and then pop up 40 feet off the stern. And then as I drove off, one of them did a full body breach!5) Jumping mobulas everywhere. Mobulas are the smaller cousin to the manta ray. The biggest I saw today was pretty big though, 8 feet across or so. It jumped directly in front of the boat about 40 feet off. A bit closer and we would have been trying to toss it back into the water!

Bottom line is that today was amazing! The life is incredible in the East Cape area and based upon reports should continue farther up into the Sea as well.

As I write we just dropped anchor in the Bahia de los Muertos. The boat has been moving for three straight days so we decided to give her the night off. She quoted some union law concerning 72 straight hours of work and mandatory overtime pay...yada, yada, yada. Whatever you say boat.

In the morning, after the boat gets a good nights rest, we will depart for La Paz. We'll be cruising past my buddies place, Palapas Ventana, along the way. If you are looking for a great place to stay that will give you the flavor of Baja, Tim's place IS the PLACE you're looking for. Okay Tim, where's the $20 you said you'd give me for the plug?